It is common to measure the electrical potentials present on the interior surface of the heart as a part of an electrophysiologic study of a patient's heart. Typically such measurements are used to form a two-dimensional map of the electrical activity of the heart muscle. An electrophysiologist will use the map to locate centers of ectopic electrical activity occurring within the cardiac tissues. One traditional mapping technique involves a sequence of electrical measurements taken from mobile electrodes inserted into the heart chamber and placed in contact with the surface of the heart. An alternative mapping technique takes essentially simultaneous measurements from a floating electrode array to generate a two-dimensional map of electrical potentials.
The two-dimensional maps of the electrical potentials at the endocardial surface generated by these traditional processes suffer many defects. Traditional systems have been limited in resolution by the number of electrodes used. The number of electrodes dictated the number of points for which the electrical activity of the endocardial surface could be mapped. Therefore, progress in endocardial mapping has involved either the introduction of progressively more electrodes on the mapping catheter or improved flexibility for moving a small mapping probe with electrodes from place to place on the endocardial surface. Direct contact with electrically active tissue is required by most systems in the prior art in order to obtain well conditioned electrical signals. An exception is a non-contact approach with spot electrodes. These spot electrodes spatially average the electrical signal through their conical view of the blood media. This approach therefore also produces one signal for each electrode. The small number of signals from the endocardial wall will result in the inability to accurately resolve the location of ectopic tissue masses. In the prior art, iso-potentials are interpolated and plotted on a rectilinear map which can only crudely represent the unfolded interior surface of the heart. Such two-dimensional maps are generated by interpolation processes which "fill in" contours based upon a limited set of measurements. Such interpolated two-dimensional maps have significant deficiencies. First, if a localized ectopic focus is between two electrode views such a map will at best show the ectopic focus overlaying both electrodes and all points in between and at worst will not see it at all. Second, the two dimensional map, since it contains no chamber geometry information, cannot indicate precisely where in the three dimensional volume of the heat chamber an electrical signal is located. The inability to accurately characterize the size and location of ectopic tissue frustrates the delivery of certain therapies such as "ablation".